EA and Valve have yet to come to an agreement to get EA's games back on Steam, but in the meantime, EA's own digital service, Origin, continues to see growth. EA COO Peter Moore revealed that Origin has attracted 5 million users since launching 4 months ago.
"...I worked at Microsoft for enough years to say this, you launch software and continue to polish it, upgrade it, get feedback and make it better. That's where we are with Origin. We're only four and a half months in and already over five million people are using it on a daily basis," Moore commented to the Sydney Morning Herald.
When asked about customer confusion about Origin, Moore played down the notion that EA's service is simply an effort to counter the likes of Steam.
"I think in its broadest sense they think it is just EA's answer to Steam, and it is much more than that," he said. "Like any great content provider, you want to provide yourself with a platform to talk directly with your customers. You don't necessarily want to be constantly be disintermediated by the other platform holder. We love our business with Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo and with Apple and Facebook, all of which have platforms that we develop games on, and all of which have revenue sharing situations or royalties, but at the same time we love to be able to talk directly with our consumers and build a platform that other publishers can take advantage of. That's exactly what Origin is all about. And I don't think anyone begrudges us doing that. The console first parties understand what we are doing. I think the fans, the people that have to use it in the early going, are the ones that get it last in regards to what we are trying to do."
Moore added that "a lot of people in the company" are dedicated to improving Origin now, and that the beta and upcoming launch of Battlefield 3 "will be the first real test of the stability of Origin."
